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It's Fun to Play the Piano ... Please Pass It On!

I looked further into the book where I am studying Come Back to Sorrento and saw a Grieg piece (In the Hall of The Mountain King) and thought well maybe I could learn this That's when my reality check ricocheted off the wall into my head. My reach has always exceeded my grasp. It's just too much right now. My ego deflated to a more manageable size right off.

Was this your selected piece for the Grieg recital? It's not original to the piano, so it's a transcription. Transcriptions are notorious for being difficult because they are trying to condense and entire orchestra (and choir in the case!) into two hands. Some transcriptions are unplayable as written and it is up to the performer to then decide which parts they will play - so it is perfectly acceptable to drop notes here.

You may also want to look at a different transcription as I am sure there are many different ones of varying levels around.

Is this Alfred All-In-One Book 3? This transcription of In The Hall Of The Mountain King is, IMHO, harder than the pieces around it. Not so much because it's a transcription -- it uses a relatively thin texture -- but because of the fluctuating accidentals, so your hand is continually making different shapes, and this happens in both the left and right hands.

I worked on this very slowly, hands separate, working on each phrase, and noting where the phrases were similar and where they were subtly (or not so subtly) different. It took me a lot longer than most other pieces in Alfred's AIO 3.

Transcriptions are notorious for being difficult because they are trying to condense and entire orchestra (and choir in the case!) into two hands. Some transcriptions are unplayable as written and it is up to the performer to then decide which parts they will play - so it is perfectly acceptable to drop notes here.

I smiled when I read this. There are certainly easy arrangements of many popular works that were originally composed for other instruments or ensembles (and there may well be some easier versions of excerpts from Peer Gynt than the one in the OP). But transcriptions also have an interesting history in piano music as displays of virtuosity. Liszt was an avid transcriptionist, and his versions of all nine Beethoven symphonies (!) are really amazing.

Leopold Godowsky, who was a composer and virtuoso performer at the turn of the 20th century, produced an infamous set of transcriptions/arrangements of the Chopin etudes that were often considered unplayable. Even though the etudes were originally for piano rather than another medium of performance, Godowsky still did amazing things with them including rewriting many as one-hand pieces (while still including everything from the two-handed originals) or transposing the left and right hand parts. They are not really unplayable, of course (see Hamelin's recordings for evidence); but many pianists have considered them profane defacements of the canonized originals.

Is this Alfred All-In-One Book 3? This transcription of In The Hall Of The Mountain King is, IMHO, harder than the pieces around it. Not so much because it's a transcription -- it uses a relatively thin texture -- but because of the fluctuating accidentals, so your hand is continually making different shapes, and this happens in both the left and right hands.

I worked on this very slowly, hands separate, working on each phrase, and noting where the phrases were similar and where they were subtly (or not so subtly) different.

It's actually in the Adult Basic Bk 3. I also study this way, not all agree with this method but it works for me.

I noticed the change in hand shape right away and this was the catalyst for my decision to forget this piece for now.

I understand, Ragdoll, I was also having a hard time balancing Alfred's book 3 (I'm at Scheherazade), my daily sight-reading, the ABF recital and other things I wanted to learn... so I changed my practice plan once more: most of my time will be devoted to my piece for the Grieg recital (!) and if I have energy to spare I'll do the theory pages in Alfred's and study a single piece as thoroughly as I can for the next ABF recital. Book 3 is terribly time-consuming, so in the future I will just try to get the technical aspects without learning full pieces, unless they are extremely appealing!

I don't know if this is helpful at all. For the Grieg, I'm using a strategy my teacher gave me, which is to start at the end or hardest part, work on smaller parts, and start with basic things (right notes, comfortable fingering, not up to speed, not 'musically' yet). I spent my first day basically on the very last measure because of the tricky thing in it. After that it's been one line per day. I also learned a thing called "pyramiding" where you start at the end, and keep building on it. (m. 32. m. 31 - flow into 32). You do that for a larger chunk of maybe 8 measures. The result is that as you practice, you are moving from the least familiar to stuff that is very familiar. At the end you should have a strong finish, just as you're getting tired. We have 5 months. That's like 150 days. So even 3 measures per day would get you somewhere, without taking up all your time.

I didn't start from the end but I tried to identify the difficult parts, what Charles Cooke calls "fractures". One of these is actually the end with its big chords! So much patience needed... but yes, there should be plenty of time.

Nothing wrong with reaching for the stars and dropping back down to earth. We brush ourselves off, and in time, reach again.

When I was taking lessons out of the RCM grade 1 book, I peeked at the RCM grade 5 book and thought wow, that looks like real music, as if grade 1 wasn't somehow? Anyway, even tried a few bars but didn't go anywhere. Now I'm taking lessons from the grade 5 book, I still remember the feeling of being impressed by music that now looks so normal. I took a peeked at the RCM grade 9 book yesterday - Liszt Consolation no. 3, tried a few bars then put it away. Someday....